Summary: Greta gives Yuuri a gift to use on Wolfram that he doesn't want. Turns out he was wrong.

"Good night, Greta."
Yuuri tucked the blankets around Greta and smoothed a hand over her
hair. "I hope you have happy dreams."

"I will," Greta
said and snuggled under the covers, closing her eyes. Abruptly, her
eyes popped open again and she sat up, surprising Yuuri. "I
forgot!"

"Forgot?" Yuuri
watched as Greta scrambled past him, out of bed, and across the
bedroom. She snatched a glass bottle from her dressing table and
skipped back to Yuuri. "This is for you."

Yuuri accepted the gift
and held it up to the light. The bottle was about the size of his
hand, with a starburst pattern, tapered at the top with a glass
stopper. Dark pink liquid filled the bottle three-quarters of the
way. He unstoppered the bottle and sniffed. It smelled fruity, like
sweetened berries. "What is it?"

"It's a love
potion!" Greta chirped. "If you use it, Wolfram will love you
enough to marry you finally and I'll really have two fathers!"

Yuuri slammed the glass
stopper back on the bottle. "Greta, where did you get this?"

"From the kitchen."
Greta climbed back into bed and arranged the covers around her.
"Doria and Lasagna and Sangria said that if you spread what's in
that bottle on yourself, it would make Wolfram love you and they'll
win a lot of money."

Yuuri gulped and stared
at the bottle in repulsion. He would not be using it to
seduce Wolfram anytime soon. Or at all. And he would be upping his
wager through Gwendal with the three maids that he'd hold out for a
girl.

"Do you like it
Yuuri?" Greta said, snuggling under the blankets again.

"It's wonderful,"
Yuuri lied through his teeth. He bent and kissed Greta on the
forehead. "Thank you."

Greta smiled, closed
her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

Yuuri left her bedroom,
shutting the door behind him. He nodded to the guard standing
outside her door and headed up the corridor to his own chambers.
Alone in his room, he looked at the bottle once more, shuddered, and
put it on the table beside the bed. He'd have to figure out a way
to get rid of it without hurting Greta's feelings.

"About time you got
here."

"Ah!" Yuuri jumped,
startled, as the mound of blankets on the bed moved. Wolfram sat up,
hair in slight disarray. His pink nightgown slipped off one
shoulder.

"Where were you?
Were you out cheating on me?" Wolfram demanded to know.

"I was tucking Greta
into her own bed," Yuuri said pointedly. He took off his
school jacket and tossed it on the valet beside the wardrobe cabinet.

Yuuri rolled his eyes,
his back to Wolfram. He changed his uniform undershirt for his
pajama top.

"What's this?"

Yuuri turned as Wolfram
picked up the glass bottle on the bedside table. His eyes bugged in
horror and he leapt towards Wolfram. "No, wait!"

In what seemed like
slow motion, Yuuri's hand hit the bottom of the bottle right as
Wolfram pulled the stopper free. The bottle upended, spilling its
contents on Wolfram's nightgown and splashing onto his bared
collarbone and neck.

"Yuuri!" Wolfram
righted the bottle, put the stopper on, and shoved the bottle at him.
Yuuri clasped it with dread, staring at the darker pink splotches
staining Wolfram's pink nightgown.

Wolfram's lips curled
in disgust, pulling the nightgown away from his body. "What is
this stuff? It smells like berries."

"It's… uh… it's
perfume." Yuuri's eyes grew huge as Wolfram drew the nightgown
up and over his head, baring pale skin from neck to ankle. The
bedcovers bunched at the vee of his legs, barely hiding his private
bits. "What are you doing!" Yuuri squealed.

"Preventing a mess."
Wolfram bundled the nightgown in a ball and slid out of bed.

Yuuri spun around,
face heating from what he'd seen. "Wolfram!"

"What?" Wolfram
brushed past Yuuri, walking bare-bottomed over to the wardrobe
cabinet. Yuuri froze, unable to tear his gaze from Wolfram's
backside until it was covered by a dressing gown.

"I'm going to
bathe. This perfume is sticky," Wolfram said. He gave Yuuri a
warning look over his shoulder. "Don't get kidnapped or killed
while I'm gone."

Yuuri dropped onto the
edge of the bed as soon as the door closed behind Wolfram and tugged
at the collar of his pajama shirt. The odd feeling in his stomach
had to be revulsion caused by the excited feeling he had a bit lower
down his body. He'd seen Wolfram unclothed before and didn't
have a reaction, so why did it happen now?

The light glinted off
the side of the glass bottle in Yuuri's hand. The love potion!
Greta had said the potion would make Wolfram love him if he smeared
it on his body. But the potion had been accidentally smeared on
Wolfram, which meant…

Yuuri dropped the
potion as if it burned him. The bottle bounced off his foot, clinked
on the floor without breaking, and rolled under the bed, but Yuuri
paid it no attention as he ran over and bolted the door lock. He
leaned back against the door and sunk slowly to the ground. Wolfram
was washing the potion off, but Yuuri was taking no chances. He
refused to fall in love.

Yuuri scrunched his
eyes at the sudden brightness behind his closed lids and turned his
head to bury his face against the warm, hard pillow.

"Good morning, Your
Majesty!" Günter's voice rang out and Yuuri groaned.
"Günter has come to assist you in dressing. I have your
underwear all ready for you to step into."

"Drop that underwear
before I chop off your hands." Yuuri's pillow vibrated with
Wolfram's order and he grumbled unhappily. Wolfram had sneaked
into his room again—

Wait – Wolfram!

Yuuri pushed up with
his hands and was jolted to a stop by something wrapped around his
head. He gurgled in distress when he found he was eyeball-to-navel
with Wolfram. His lower half hung off the bed.

"Oh!" Günter
gasped suddenly. Yuuri shoved back from under Wolfram's pajamas
and tumbled off the bed. He caught of glimpse of Günter with
his hands covering his nose as he fled abruptly from the room.

Wolfram sat up and
stretched his arms, exposing a strip of skin under the hem of the
familiar-looking pajama shirt he wore. His blonde hair stuck up at
odd-angles and he blinked sleepily as he looked at Yuuri. "Why are
you on the floor?"

"How did you get in
my bed?" Yuuri squeaked. "I locked the door."

Wolfram made a derisive
sound. "As if that would keep me out."

"It's supposed to!
That's what locks are for!"

"For everyone but
your fiancé." Wolfram climbed out of bed and bent over to
pick something off the floor. The pajama bottoms drooped revealingly
in the back. "How am I going to protect you otherwise, wimp?"

"It's you I need
protection from," Yuuri muttered, slamming his eyelids shut when he
realized he was staring at Wolfram's backside. Again. "Are you
wearing my pajamas?"

"Yes. Some clumsy
oaf spilled sticky perfume all over mine. I believe this is yours,
too."

Yuuri cracked open an
eye and saw his black Shin Makoku underwear dangling from Wolfram's
fingers. The sight shouldn't have excited him.

"Goingtotakeabathnowbye,"
Yuuri's words trailed behind him in his breakneck dash from the
bedroom.

He belly-flopped into
the Maou's private bath, sinking to the bottom in his full pajamas.
Obviously, Wolfram's bath the night before hadn't erased all
traces of the love potion. Yuuri must have breathed it in when his
head was under Wolfram's pajama shirt. The love potion had caused
him to put his head under Wolfram's shirt, too. His awareness of
Wolfram physically couldn't be explained by anything else. It
wasn't as if he actually liked Wolfram in that way.

Hopefully, after his
own bath, his senses would be clear and he could go back to seeing
Wolfram as nothing more than an annoying friend.

It hadn't worked.
Yuuri shifted back on the saddle, away from the curve of Wolfram's
rear, and adjusted the tightness of his trousers. Days had passed
and Yuuri had only grown more captivated by Wolfram's appearance
because of the love potion. The flick of his hair caused Yuuri's
breath catch and his rare smile made Yuuri weak in the knees. A
flush on Wolfram's cheeks brought ideas into Yuuri's thoughts on
how else to cause it. A flash of skin triggered improper reactions
that made it difficult to walk, or ride as the case may be.

Yuuri rested his
forehead on the nape of Wolfram's neck and inhaled deeply. Wolfram
smelled like horse and sweat and a little of that spicy soap he
favored. Maybe Yuuri'd get a stronger whiff of the spice if he
slid his nose into Wolfram's hair…

"Are you… sniffing
me?" Wolfram said in a peculiar tone of voice.

Yuuri jerked his head
back, face flaming. "N-no! Of course not!" He caught sight of
Konrad's lips twitching and wanted to throw himself in a sandbear
hole. "Are we ever going to get there?"

Konrad urged his horse
closer to Wolfram and Yuuri's. The horse's hooves kicked up dust
as they clopped on the dirt road. "It's not too much farther."

"Thankfully,"
Wolfram said. "I'm close to making Yuuri ride with you because
he won't stop shifting around. And he keeps poking me with his
sword hilt."

Konrad barked in
laughter and slapped a hand over his mouth. Yuuri searched
desperately for that sandbear hole. There could be one in a wooded
area, right?

"What's so funny,
Weller?" Wolfram snapped.

Konrad cleared his
throat and dropped his hand. He looked like he was having a
difficult time keeping a straight face. "I'm merely amused by
your desire to get rid of His Majesty, when you were the one to
insist he ride with you after all his complaints about this trip."

Konrad's lips pressed
tightly together suddenly and his shoulders shook. He nodded his
head in acknowledgement and kicked his horse into a short trot,
getting ahead of them. "Ooh-ooh-ooouuuh," called Morgif from his
cloth wrap, strapped to the back of Konrad's saddle.

Wolfram turned his head
to look back at Yuuri. "I thought you were wearing Morgif."

"Here sandbear,
sandbear, sandbear," Yuuri said.

"Hello, kiddo. Is
this seat taken?"

Yuuri dragged his eyes
from Wolfram across the pub and half-smiled as Yozak dropped into the
chair beside him. "I didn't know you'd be here, Yozak."

"Gwendal sent me
ahead, to ensure a safe welcome for you," Yozak said. He handed
Yuuri the second cup of ale in his hand and tipped his chair back to
rest on two legs. "I'm surprised to see you sitting alone."

"Konrad's meeting
someone and told us to wait." Yuuri's gaze drifted back to
Wolfram. Wearing his commoner's disguise, Wolfram sat surrounded
by Mazoku of similar age wearing the local soldier uniforms. They
were playing a coin game of some sort, laughing and cheering each
other on.

"Why aren't you
playing coins, too?" Yozak asked.

"I needed a break,"
Yuuri murmured, dropping his gaze to stare into the depths of his
cup. He saw his pink-haired reflection ripple in the ale.

"Ah, I see how it
is." Yozak tapped the side of his cup with his fingers. "Wolfram
takes after Lady Cheri too much."

Yozak's tone made
Yuuri look up and across the lightly crowded pub. Wolfram's brow
furrowed in concentration, the corners of his mouth turned down. He
leaned over the table and flicked the coin. The coin clinked between
cups of ale, ringing out with different tones each hit. A boisterous
cheer rose from the other soldiers. Wolfram smiled smugly, as
someone slung an arm around his shoulder.

The ale sloshed out of
the cup as Yuuri shoved it at Yozak and stood. He stormed across the
pub, a dark monster clawing at the inside of his gut. The soldiers
fell quiet when Yuuri stopped in front of their table in his trader
guise, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Wolfram's
expression warred between a confused, concerned, and his usual scowl,
but Yuuri daggered stare was aimed at the soldier beside him. "Get
your arm off of my fiancé. Right. Now."

The soldier gulped and
moved his arm quickly. "Sorry, sir. I had thought he was just
your servant."

"Yuuri," Wolfram
said in a stunned voice.

Yuuri shifted his gaze
to Wolfram, who stared back at him like he'd never seen Yuuri
before. Reality returned swiftly, and Yuuri could feel the eyes of
everyone in the pub on him. His stomach dropped to his feet. What
was he doing?

Yuuri pivoted on his
heel and fled.

"Yuuri!" Wolfram
shouted from behind him, as Yuuri ran around the corner of the pub,
outside. The narrow alleyway between buildings held garbage and
sewage, and dead-ended at a pike fence.

Yuuri grasped the iron
bars preventing his escape. He pressed his face between them. Maybe
he could squeeze through.

"Yuuri!" Wolfram
grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around. "What are you doing?
It's dangerous outside for a wimp like you."

Yuuri quashed the urge
to push past Wolfram and run again. He spotted Yozak standing at the
other end of the alleyway. "Yozak's here."

"Yozak isn't me,"
Wolfram stated. He folded his arms and glowered at Yuuri.

"You're the
one who said I was your fiancé in there," Wolfram jerked a
thumb at the wall of the pub, "and that's what a fiancé is
for."

"That's not what a
fiancé is for!"

"Ha! Shows what you
know."

"I know, Yozak knows,
Konrad knows, everyone knows that a fiancé is for
kissing, not protecting!"

Wolfram's cheeks
pinked, but he appeared sad all of a sudden. He looked away. "I
guess I'm not much of a fiancé, then."

An ache bloomed in
Yuuri's chest and he had the sudden need to fix what caused
Wolfram's sadness and any sadness he may have in the future. He
stepped closer and laid his hand on Wolfram's shoulder. "Wolfram…"

Whatever he had been
going to say died in his throat, when Wolfram's gaze met his.
There was no mistaking the longing barely hidden under a thin layer
of anger in Wolfram's eyes.

Wolfram shoved him
abruptly. "I don't want your pity, wimp." He spun on his heel
and stalked down the alleyway.

Yuuri watched Wolfram
walk away and wondered why it felt like he'd been kicked off the
baseball team. "Wait!"

Wolfram stopped, his
shoulders taut.

Yuuri stepped forward
hesitantly, then took another regular step, and another, and another,
until he reached Wolfram's side. The orange glow of the sunset
tinted Wolfram's hair gold, as Yuuri moved in front of him.
Yuuri's gaze roved over Wolfram's face – the face he couldn't
stop seeing even when Wolfram wasn't around. Yuuri knew it was
just the love potion, but he didn't want to fight the attraction
anymore.

Yuuri lifted his hand
and it hovered beside Wolfram's cheek. He looked at Wolfram's
lips and then at his eyes, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest.

Wolfram brought his
hand up and covered Yuuri's, pressing it against his cheek. He
licked his lips, drawing Yuuri's focus back to them. Yuuri's
breath hitched as Wolfram leaned closer. His head tilted slightly
and his eyelids fluttered shut. Their lips met.

Homerun.

Wolfram's face
flushed and Yuuri's knees were weak when they parted. Yuuri
couldn't help the goofy grin that spread across his face. "You're
wrong. You make a great fiancé."

"Yuuri,"
Wolfram said, turning an even deeper shade of pink.

Yuuri laughed, grabbed
Wolfram's hand, and dragged him out of the alleyway.

"Good morning,"
Yuuri said as he entered the small, family dining room. Gwendal,
Konrad, Wolfram, and Greta sat around the table, their plates already
filled with food. Günter's chair was empty, as he'd fainted
when Yuuri had accepted his offer of helping to dress, since Yuuri
was running late.

"Good morning,
Yuuri!" Greta greeted enthusiastically. Yuuri bussed her on the
head as he passed her chair. He leaned down and gave Wolfram a kiss,
too, making Wolfram's cheeks pink.

"No kissing at the
table," Gwendal said with a frown. "I have to see you two do it
enough around the castle without putting my meal off."

Konrad chuckled softly.
Yuuri blushed, though he was still pleased, and he took his chair
beside Wolfram and tucked a napkin in his collar. A stack of
pancakes waited to fill his stomach.

He looked around the
table for the syrup. "Pass the syrup, someone, please?"

"My apologies, Your
Majesty!" Doria said as she rushed into the room at the same time
as he spoke. Lasagna and Sangria stayed in the doorway. "We
forgot to bring out the syrup for your pancakes!"

Yuuri stared at the
glass bottle she set down beside his plate. It had a starburst
pattern, tapered at the top with a glass stopper. Dark pink liquid
filled it a quarter of the way. "What is this?"

"Berry syrup,"
Doria said. "It's imported from Cabalcade. We thought we'd
used it up, but one of the cleaning maids found the bottle yesterday,
so you're in luck, Your Majesty."

"Berry… syrup…"

Wolfram put his hand
over Yuuri's. "Are you ill, wimp? You got pale all of a
sudden."

"Your Majesty?"
Konrad said worriedly.

Yuuri lifted his gaze
slowly from the glass bottle to see Wolfram's face filled with soft
concern – the face he thought he'd loved because of a love
potion. "It's only berry syrup," he said.

"Oh! You don't
want berry syrup?" Doria sounded distressed. She snatched up the
bottle and clutched it to her chest. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty!
We'll get you another kind."

"That's okay,
Doria." Yuuri turned his hand over and linked his fingers with
Wolfram's, earning him a smile that made his heart flip. "I know
I'll love it, anyway."

End

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